His Name is Ateee Te-ten!

That was as of February. Fast forward to one month after, he can now say Aki Benten. When asked what his  name is, sometimes he will say Aki Benten. Most of the time it’s Benten… Hiyaaaa!

My bad mommy confession is that Aki watches TV.
My worse mommy confession is that he gets to watch cartoons which have violent scenes like Benten and Power Rangers.
My worst mommy confession is that I am not feeling guilty about it. Okay, maybe I am but just a bit.

Before you throw tomatoes at me, let me be clear that in our house, he rarely watches TV. We are not subscribed to cable TV. We have the old school antena which also doubles as Aki’s make believe microphone.

Aki therefore has no interest watching TV in our house. He watches TV in my in laws house on weekdays. On weekends, he is TV free.

Now that Aki is almost 2 and a half, I’m more comfortable letting him watch TV. I know that he gets a healthy dose of active, creative and free plays. I am not bothered because I know that TV is not  taking much of his time and attention. When Aki said he is Yellow Power Ranger ( he was wearing a yellow shirt that day), I made him watch this video. Now, he is always Red One.

Last month, he was obsessed with Benten. He loved wearing watches, bracelets or any thing he can put on his wrist and pretend that he is Benten. I asked our pedia if we are bad parents for letting Aki watch Benten. Doc reminded us that we also grew up watching shows that are violent in nature like Voltes V ( I am Jamie of course) and  Bioman (I have always been Pink 5) and yet we grew up to be non-violent adults. Doc said what is important is the guidance of parents.

One more thing, I also think banning  superhero shows and teaching Aki that all forms of hurting others is wrong  would be unnatural to our family since my husband is into Brazilian jujitsu, judo, and aikido. Lately, hubby and I are trying to learn arnis.  In a few years, we plan to entroll Aki in martial arts classes to bully-proof him. Actually, I have started bully-proof training him by teaching him to say “Stop it!” if some one pushes or hurts him.

I am off-topic again. Back to Benten. During the peak of Aki’s Benten obsession, I made him a Benten t-shirt.

Speaking of super hero, when we play, we take turns on being a superhero and a victim. Aki likes to pretend that he is falling and will shout Say Me! (Save me)! He also likes to instruct me to pretend that I am stuck under his slide so he can save me.

mameee, hulp! Say me!
(mummy, help! Save me!)

Aki, you are my hero!